Friday, May 27, 2011

The Upcoming Weekend

First, a TV programming note: I know a few of my friends and my parents really enjoyed the wacky spy show Chaos, before it was abruptly pulled after three episodes. Well, it looks like they're going to show the remaining episodes during the summer. There are two episodes scheduled for Saturday night, starting at 7 Central Time on CBS. That works out well this weekend, since BBCAmerica isn't showing the new episode of Doctor Who because of the holiday weekend (I suspect they'll see the error of their ways when their ratings drop significantly for the subsequent episodes that are shown a week late, thanks to viewers who don't want to wait and who have other ways of obtaining the episodes).

I took a walk to the library this morning because it was nice and cool, and I needed the exercise even if I didn't really desperately need books and could have dropped off the books that are due over the weekend. Unfortunately, by the time I dug through my "books to look for" notebook and the library's online catalogue to find things to check out, it was no longer nice and cool, so I am now very sweaty. I resorted to checking out a lot of children's books because I just couldn't take the darkness anymore. I've been reading for market research, and it seems that everything in the genre that best fits what I'm working in is really dark, which may be a bad sign for me. I used to go to YA when I wanted something lighter, but those are now really dark, with dystopia being the big thing. It's hard to find plain old fun reading material.

What I'd love to find is some steampunk that isn't dark and depressing and that doesn't have zombies, vampires, werewolves or dark, twisted sorcerers -- something that's more pure adventure in airships, with a Jules Verne flavor. Cool gadgets, cool costumes and a feeling of adventure and possibility, with Victorian manners and a touch of romance. The closest I've found are the Scott Westerfeld books, Leviathan and Behemoth, but there's not a lot more like that. I may just have to dig out my Jules Verne books.

My Memorial Day weekend plans are simple. I'm singing for a funeral Saturday morning, then I'll be visiting the parents later in the weekend. If I'm really good, I'll finish this round of revisions on the book today, so I can then spend the weekend doing a lot of reading and relaxing.

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